# Customizing BuddyPress texts to match your community purpose BuddyPress is using texts as generic as possible to adapt to a wide range of communities. If your community site needs a very specific lexical field or vocabulary, the best way to reach this level of customization is to override the default translation files provided by the [WordPress Polyglots team](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/buddypress/). ## Your toolkit WordPress is using the [Gettext open source library](https://www.php.net/manual/en/intro.gettext.php) to achieve its internationalization. In short, translatable strings into the source code are extracted into a "Portable Objects Template" file (having a `.pot` extension). Thanks to this kind of file contributors can focus on translating the english strings to generate a human readable translation file (having a `.po` extension) as well as a binary file (having a `.po` extension) for the machines to read it faster! In the end WordPress & BuddyPress end users can enjoy the 2 softwares into their own/native language. > [!NOTE] > The naming convention of the .mo files is based on the ISO-639 language code (e.g. pt for Portuguese) followed by the ISO-3166 country code (e.g. PT for Portugal or BR for Brazil). So, the Brazilian Portuguese file would be called pt_BR.mo, and a non-specific Portuges file would be called pt.mo. Complete lists of codes can be found at [(country codes)](https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/gettext/manual/gettext.html#Country-Codes) and [(language codes)](https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/gettext/manual/gettext.html#Language-Codes). ### The `.pot` file is key! To get the latest version of the BuddyPress translatable strings, you can [view & download it](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/buddypress/trunk/buddypress.pot) (link at the bottom of the page) from the WordPress plugin's official repository. ### A software to generate `.po` & `.mo` files out of a `.pot` one is required. ![Poedit](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-04.png) [Poedit](https://poedit.net/wordpress) is a free software available for Mac, Windows and Linux OS. You'll need to download, install & use it to build your custom language files. ### The default translation file (`.po`) for your locale > [!NOTE] > You can skip this tool if you're using the American language, which is the default WordPress language (`en_US`), on your site. ![Exporting a .po file](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-01.png) Getting this `.po` file will save you some time as you'll be able to avoid starting from scratch! Go to the [BuddyPress translation place on WordPress.org](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/buddypress/) to pick your language `.po` file for the latest **stable** version of BuddyPress. ### Translation files (`.json`) for JavaScript When you need to customize the texts used in BuddyPress blocks, you'll need to copy & edit some JSON files generated by WordPress and located into the `/wp-content/languages/plugins` directory of your Website. These files are named according to this schema: `buddypress-{locale code}-{md5 encoded script source relative path}.json`. ## Create your custom Translation file ### Custom language files locations ||![Plugin languages](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-02.png)|| |:-:|:-:|:-:| ||WordPress default translation files location|| Official BuddyPress translations are located into the `/wp-content/languages/plugins` directory of your WordPress site. BuddyPress will override these language files by custom ones if you put them into one of these directories: - `/wp-content/languages/plugins/buddypress` - `/wp-content/languages/buddypress` - `/wp-content/languages` ### Your site locale is `en_US` Even if `en_US` is WordPress default locale and all BuddyPress strings are written into this locale into the source code, adapting BuddyPress texts to match your specific community vocabulary can be done by adding a `buddypress-en_US.mo` file into one of the above directories. Let's take a simple example to illustrate how you can customize BuddyPress default strings. A community site about sport might want to use the `team` term instead of the `group` one. To achieve this customization, below are the steps you need to perform. #### Open the `buddypress.pot` file in Poedit ![New from file command](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-05.png) Launch Poedit, use the `New from POT/PO file` command and browse your computer files looking for the latest stable `buddypress.pot` file you [downloaded](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/buddypress/trunk/buddypress.pot) when setting your toolkit. Once it's opened, make sure to select the **English (United States)** into the modal window that has popped up. Click on the **Ok** button. ![US locale](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-06.png) #### Fill your `en_US` translation with default BuddyPress strings Click on one of the listed rows, then hit the `Cmd+A` or `Ctrl+A` keys of your keyboard to select all rows. From the **Edit** menu, click on the **Copy from Source Text** command to use all default strings as your translation. It will save you some time compared to starting from scratch! ![Copy from souce](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-07.png) #### Carefully replace most `group` then `Group` occurrences by `team` then `Team` Click on one of the listed rows, then use the **Find and Replace** command to display the modal window to enter what needs to be replaced (`group`) and with what (`team`). ![Copy from souce](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-08.png) Check each `group` occurrences hitting the **Next button** and click on the **Replace button** except when you reach a BP Email message content. You'll recognize them thanks to the "Notes from translators" frame: it contains a warning text about the fact [BP Email tokens](https://github.com/buddypress/buddypress/blomaster/docs/user/administration/emails/tokens.md) shouldn't be translated. For these translations, manually replace `group` occurrences that are not prefixed with brackets `{{`. ![Email tokens](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-09.png) Once you finished these replacements, do the same for the `Group` occurrences: this time you can use the **Replace All** button. Finally, save your custom `buddypress-en_US` files into one of the BP Language custom locations. ||![Custom languages location](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-11.png)|| |:-:|:-:|:-:| ||One of the BP Custom languages location|| You should see that your Site is now using `team|Team` instead of `group|Group` everywhere in your site 🙌. ![Teams instead of Groups](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-10.png) ### Your site locale is something different than `en_US` (e.g. `fr_FR`) #### Open your locale default translation `.po` file in Poedit ![Open command](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-12.png) Launch Poedit, use the `Open` command and browse your computers file looking for the default translation `.po` file for the locale you exported from the [BuddyPress translation place on WordPress.org](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/buddypress/) when setting your toolkit. Once it's opened, make sure to select the corresponding locale into the modal window that has popped up. Click on the **Ok** button. #### Carefully replace most translated `group` then `Group` occurrences by `team` then `Team` in your locale Click on one of the listed rows, then use the **Find and Replace** command to display the modal window to enter what needs to be replaced (`groupe`) and with what (`équipe`). ![Find & replace command](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-14.png) Check each translated `group` then `Group` occurrences hitting the **Next button** and click on the **Replace button** to replace it with your locale version of `team` then `Team`. You may need to adapt some other parts of the translated texts to match your locale grammar. ||![Custom languages location](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-03.png)|| |:-:|:-:|:-:| ||One of the BP Custom languages location|| Finally, save your custom `buddypress-xx_XX` files into one of the BP Language custom locations. ## Create a custom Script Translation file The easiest way to do so is to use JSON files WordPress adds into `/wp-content/languages/plugins` when you are using a locale that is not `en_US`. Find the Block corresponding to the JSON translation file looking for the `comment.reference` property. Copy it into one of the BuddyPress custom language locations. ||![Custom languages location](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-15.png)|| |:-:|:-:|:-:| ||One of the BP Custom languages location|| Once copied, use a text/code Editor to edit this file. > [!TIP] > Using VSCode, you can use the command to restructure & prettify the one line file (Shift + option + F) so it's easier to work with it. ![Edit JSON](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-16.png) Save your edits! For the above example which is about the Groups Block, you should see the customization results within the Block Editor. ![Tada!](../assets/advanced-user-customize-text-17.png) Good job! You have customized BuddyPress default strings and/or BuddyPress translations to match your community specific lexical field 💪.